This pretty much sums up a recent visit to the Apple Store and the visit reveals how far the company’s products have fallen from its top-notch quality in the early days.

For an Apple product kept mostly in a protective casing, to an obvious oil-sort of stain that doesn’t go away with cleaning (the courteous but unbelieving Genius Bar staff claimed not to see it), it’s disappointing for the maiden visit.

A shiny surface’s
coating has a stain or scratch
Apple says, “Your bad.”

He sat on a root of an old tree facing the canal, on a cool, wet Sunday evening. He parked his bike by the tree and sat down, white earphones plugged into his ears.

He was singing.

It wasn’t the shouting or the murmuring kind. His voice was comfortably loud but not annoying. It was a strong voice and he went into a rhythmic sing-song.

It didn’t sound like a modern or pop song. His accent, voice and the song he was singing showed he was out of town, his home far away from where he is right now.

I couldn’t make out the language or the words but I know he comes from the same culture as I. And despite that, his singing and the traditional song reached out to me and for a moment, I was transported to his home town a thousand kilometres away and surrounded by the warmth of his family and friends.To ease the homesickness ever so slightly.

How homesick he must be.

And it was a sight that I couldn’t shake off because it’s so…human. In this urban and fast-paced country I live in, it’s hard to slow down or show too much of your humanity. So I’m thankful for witnessing this scene today, a reminder that there is so much more to life than the ‘robotic life’ that many of us are living now.

More often than not, when we are in the less-than-desired situation, we expect others to help us out. And the truth couldn’t be closer than the fact that we need to help ourselves first before others can do so.

Happy 52nd, Singapore. Barely passed half a decade and you’ve seen so much already.

My wishes for the country is not for it to move forward like a bulldozer and on a single-minded track. The world is evolving a lot quicker than most of us anticipated and Singapore can no longer afford to keep doing the same stuff and then try to play catch up later after the dust has settled.